The Chinese View of S.N.L.’s iPhone “Tech Talk”

“Saturday Night Live” nicely skewered our collective global tech dilemma last weekend with a skit called “Tech Talk,” which has been making the rounds ever since. For those who missed it, the bit begins with a panel of grimly earnest technology reporters ticking off one “nightmare” and “struggle” after another about the iPhone 5: The CNET reporter: “Everyone knows that Apple Maps has been a total disaster, and, since there is no Google Maps app yet, I’ve been forced to use Google Maps in my browser, which is significantly slower,” drawing a sympathetic sigh from the host, played by Christina Applegate. A journalist from Wired adds her concerns about the phone’s camera: “Every time I point it straight at the sun there’s a very slight purplish hue in all of my photos. What is that!” The Gizmodo guy says, “It’s a real struggle. Whoever built these iPhones, I don’t know what they were thinking.”

At that, Applegate says, “Yeah. Let’s ask them.” The tech writers blanch, and we’re introduced to three “Chinese” “peasant laborers”—Fred Armisen, Nasim Pedrad and Cecily Strong—with white uniforms, silly fu-manchu accents, and pitch-perfect sarcasm. “I guess we just lucky, we don’t need map because we sleep where we work,” one of them says. “You upset with bug in new phone?” says another. “I sleep in communal bunk bed with one hundred stranger. Lice are best bug I get.” And so on, until they end with a performance on a “sad Chinese violin” and a “traditional sarcastic dance.” Nobody ever needs to say Foxconn because by now the issue has seeped into our collective sense that the technology we love is not immaculately conceived. (Read more on the contentious details of Foxconn conditions.) The farce succeeds because it captures an overlap that rings true: some who are most pedantic about their phones are also the most proud of being progressive. In America, the skit has touched off a bit of braying and fact-checking—Liz Flora at the Asia Society has a good roundup of English-language reaction—but what are people saying about it in China?

Not all that much yet, but it has drawn some interesting comments on Weibo. “SNL has totally smeared the image of Chinese people. What kind of accent is that? Indian?” a commentator called Leya wrote. “Are we that stupid? Not funny in the slightest.” If humor is hard to translate, it seems this skit was hieroglyphics. “Now when I think about the iPhone, my mind rings with SNL’s dumb voices.”

Mercifully, the joke came through to some. “Too many highlights to recount,” Wash1987 wrote. “This thing made me laugh all afternoon at the office.” Jennyzhuqi wrote: “Everybody should see this video.”

As much as the skit gets us right, it would be interesting to see a Chinese satire of an even more interesting fact—that Chinese consumers have been some of the most enthusiastic consumers of the iPhone. Chinese tech bloggers and Chinese workers in a debate: that would be good television.

Recommended Stories

As the years passed, Tom grew more entrenched in his homelessness. He was absorbed in lofty fantasies and private missions, aware of the basest necessities and the most transcendent abstractions, and almost nothing in between.